The Discovery of Heaven

by Harry Mulisch

  Quinten looked in astonishment as his father fished an envelope out of his inside pocket, took a box of matches from his trouser pocket, and lit the envelope at one corner.

  "What are you doing?"

  "I'm mailing a letter."

  He turned the burning envelope between his fingers until he could no longer hold it. He ground the charred remains, which had fallen, into the earth with his heel and scattered them with his stick, until nothing more could be seen. Quinten watched in astonishment.

  "Don't pay any attention and don't ask me anything." Onno took back the Bible and looked in St. Paul's Epistle to the Hebrews for the passages whose existence he remembered. "It's a long time, son, since I devoted myself to Bible study. Thank goodness it's the Authorized Version, in the language of Canaan, and not one of those new-fangled versions of the God-Is-Dead school."

  While an occasional lady with a child or a gentleman with a dog passed them along the path, or a jogger trotted by, he read aloud to Quinten about Christ, who had not entered the "the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us."

  " 'Christ,' " he recited with a solemn voice, " 'being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building; neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.' It says here that he consecrated man 'through the veil, that is to say, his flesh.' Come now, come now. And here it talks about 'the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched and not man.' If you ask me, all that contains a prohibition against ever building an earthly Holy of Holies with human hands again."

  "But," said Quinten, "over there is a Christian building that is called Sancta Sanctorum and is the holiest place on earth."

  "That's what I mean."

  "So perhaps it's not so very Christian at all. That is, Christian but at the same time not Christian."

  Onno nodded. "I take your point, but where do you want to go from here?"

  Quinten pointed to the Bible. "Look at the ark of the covenant again. I want to know how big it was."

  Onno looked up the book of Exodus and did not have to look for long. It was as though when he saw all those names and turns of phrase he again smelled the smell of his parents' house.

  "Two and a half ells long, one and a half ells wide, and one and a half ells high."

  "And how long is an ell?"

  "Well, from your elbow to the tip of your middle finger, so about eighteen inches."

  "So about forty-three inches long, twenty-seven inches wide, and twenty-seven inches high."

  "That's about right."

  Quinten looked through the hilly park, but all he saw was the heavy padlock. "If you ask me, that's also the size of the altar in the Sancta Sanctorum."

  "Let's hope," said Onno with a little laugh, "that it's a bit bigger, otherwise the ark won't fit in it."

  "Why are you laughing?"

  "Because everything is always right—if you want it to be. Just think of that crazy Proctor, in the castle. Do you remember? Look, I've got one, two, three, four, five, six, seven buttons on my shirt; the top one is open. So that tallies with the six days of creation and the Sabbath."

  "But something can really be right, can't it?"

  "Of course."

  "Why else would there be such thick bars in front of that altar? And on that canopy above there are two angels with outspread wings, aren't there? We're on the track of something, Dad! Non est in toto sanctior orbe locus— that could also have been in the temple of Jerusalem!"

  Onno closed the Bible, looked at Quinten seriously and made a gesture. "Yes."

  "Well, then! I have to know what's going on here."

  "Why on earth do you have to, Quinten?"

  "I don't know," said Quinten with something impatient in his voice, while he was thinking of the center of the world.

  57

  Discoveries

  The origin of the urge that had seized Quinten was a mystery to Onno. Max and Sophia had brought the boy up to be agnostic—he scarcely knew the Bible, and religions had never interested him, as far as Onno knew. If this was a kind of religious mania, then he could understand. But it was obviously nothing of the kind. And besides, the question of the ark of the covenant being in the Sancta Sanctorum was of course total nonsense—but Quinten's reasoning had the enthusiasm of youth and the beauty of simplicity, though Onno himself knew the traps of this kind of simple conclusion all too well.

  Things were almost never like that; something always turned up that suddenly changed the beautiful simplicity into a disheartening chaos, in which one could discover an order only with the greatest effort, which then turned out to be much more complicated. But the fact that he regarded Quinten's theory as nonsense did not stop him from immersing himself in the literature for a few days—or was it precisely the obvious absurdity of the project that attracted him?: in an absurd world only the absurd had meaning, as he had said in the letter that he had written to his father.

  Because most books he had to consult would be in Italian, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, Quinten went his own way, while Onno himself started research the following morning in the Biblioteca Nazionale. He polished his shoes as well as he could with an old rag, tucked his shirt neatly into his trousers, and for the first time in years put on a tie.

  The very first day, after a few hours, he realized what he had suspected: that through the centuries the writings about the temple of Jerusalem and the ark of the covenant had formed as vast a conglomerate as Rome itself, in which one thing was built on another and most things were under the ground. He couldn't restrain himself from browsing a little in the countless rabbinical commentaries, having a quick glance at what Philo had written about the ark; in the Middle Ages, Thomas Aquinas; in the Renaissance, Pico della Mirandola, Francesco Giorgi, Campanella; in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries Fludd and Kepler and even Newton; down to the watered-down views of modern freemasons, Rosicrucians, and anthroposophists.

  The existence of all those speculations made him realize even more acutely what a commotion it would cause if the ark actually appeared—but apart from that, it was all much too interesting. He knew from experience that he would never finish if he went into that any further. Via entries in Jewish encyclopedias, not only Hebrew ones, through notes, references, bibliographies, he had to follow the trail closely, trot like a police dog with its nose close to the ground, not looking up or around, ignoring everything that did not immediately serve his purpose. And that purpose was not religious or metaphysical or symbolic but very concrete: did the ark still exist—and if so, where was it?

  The following morning he checked all references to the ark, closer to two hundred than a hundred, with the help of a biblical concordance; and in the afternoon he looked with Quinten's eyes at the history of the Lateran palace, the basilica, and the Sancta Sanctorum. When the library closed that evening, he had made a couple of discoveries that would surprise Quinten; but he decided only to talk to him about it when he had more or less sewn things up. At the last moment he had found in a systematic catalog a promising Italian title about the treasure of the Sancta Sanctorum, and because he did not feel like going to the same library again, he first phoned the art historical institute on the Via Omero; it turned out to have a copy too, indeed in the German original. Only when he was on his way there did he realize that he had again put on a tie.

  When the librarian saw him, a smile crossed her face. "Did you leave your pious companion at home today?"

  "That's my son. He's wandering through the city somewhere, looking for the secrets of antiquity."

  "Congratulations. I've never seen such a beautiful boy. The spitting image of John the Baptist in that painting by Leonardo da Vinci." She put out her hand and said, "Elsa Schulte."

  Onno started. He put his stick into his other hand, shook her
s, and was going to say Enrico Delius, but before he realized it he had said: "Onno Quist."

  He realized that he had now driven a hole through his isolation once and for all, but no sign of recognition appeared on Elsa Schulte's face. The book that he had asked about was already on the reading table: Die römische Kapelle Sancta Sanctorum und ihr Schatz: Meine Entdeckungen und Studien in der Palastkapelle der mittelalterlicheren Päpste, published in 1908 by a certain Grisar, an Austrian Jesuit. Now he learned everything—even that the altar was about five feet long, twenty-two inches wide, and three feet high, so that the ark could have fitted into it fairly exactly. But it wasn't in it. He himself of course hadn't doubted that for a moment, and he was apprehensive about having to tell Quinten shortly.

  At lunchtime he ate two panini in the canteen and went back to order his notes. Gradually he began to feel like a student who had to do research for his crazy professor, and who would now definitely fail his master's exam, since the results didn't tally with the exaggerated expectations. But at the same time the crazy work filled him with nostalgic memories of the days of the Phaistos disc.

  An hour later an intellectual-looking gentleman came toward him. He glanced at Onno's stick, which lay on the chair next to him, and then at his ponytail. With an expressionless face he said: "Hello, Mr. Quist. Nordholt. I'm the director here."

  "I know." Onno nodded and looked at him over his reading glasses. He knew because he had appointed him at the time.

  "I'm pleased that you are kind enough to make use of our institute. Our budget was cut drastically a few years ago by the then-minister of state, and people have been dismissed, but I hope you find what you are looking for." With a short nod of his head he turned on his heel and disappeared.

  Again a score had been settled. Onno had had no opportunity to say anything else, but what could he have said? That the director should go and have a look at Westerbork? That thanks to his financial cuts in the foreign cultural institutes the universe had become twice as big? That it had been a favor to a friend? In any case, the news of his presence in Rome would now quickly get back to Holland; perhaps Nordholt was on the telephone at this very moment, to report that Quist—you know, that one—had gone completely to the dogs. Onno shrugged his shoulders and again bent over his book, but could no longer concentrate. He took off his glasses, looked out the window for a moment, and strolled toward a round reading table in the corner, where international art periodicals were displayed, and also a few Dutch newspapers and weeklies.

  As he stood there, he read that yesterday in Rome the trial had begun of a Turk, who four years previously had tried to assassinate the pope. "I am Jesus Christ," he had cried from his heavily barred cage—"the end of the world is at hand!" To think that he had to learn about this from a Dutch newspaper. He leafed on a little, sat down in amazement, and for the first time in four years filled himself in on the situation in Holland and the world.

  When he looked up an hour later and realized where he was, he felt as though he were returning from the dead. Nothing was the same anymore. From political commentaries he discovered that Dorus's cabinet, in which he was to have been minister of defense, had survived no longer than nine months; after that Koos and the Social Democrats had left, or had been driven out, after which the cabinet had soldiered on for a little, and meanwhile Dolf had become prime minister. Dolf! Of course! Called a "domestique" teasingly, a term from cycling he understood, Dolf was always underestimated by Koos too. He was welcome to it; during that dreadful boat trip, the last day of his previous life, Dolf was the only one to put a hand on his shoulder. Yes, that's how things went—they had kept the front door in their sights, the gentlemen, but not the back door: the classic error. But not only in Holland had the political situation changed. If he'd become minister of defense, then he would have had to deal with massive demonstrations against the stationing of American cruise missiles; but in the Soviet Union a new secretary-general seemed to have been in control for the past few months—a man of his own age, not with the usual concrete features, but with an open, human face and a calm, determined look.

  Suddenly he had the feeling that the world had begun a transformation. How was he to picture it? Was the end of the Cold War at hand? The thought was of course absurd—East and West were still armed to the teeth—but he felt as though he had just looked at the world like a chess player, who on first seeing a game played by two other people immediately saw a possible conclusion, which still escaped the two players. He closed the papers and magazines and stared out of the window. Was it conceivable that by the year 2000 the Communist party in the Soviet Union would be forbidden? Of course that was inconceivable, but was the inconceivable precisely about to happen? Was his numb left side—as the result of a right-wing breakthrough in his head—perhaps a political prophecy? He was amazed at that brainwave; was he in the process of adopting Quinten's way of thinking? At the same time that thought reconciled him a little with his discomfort. Lenin, he remembered, had had a stroke at about the same time, but he had had his right side paralyzed.

  That same day Quinten had gone for the third time to the building containing the Sancta Sanctorum, which by now he knew almost as well as his room at Groot Rechteren. He did not notice the affectionate looks of the fathers of the Holy Cross out of the corner of their eyes when again he stared through the bars at the locked papal altar with his beautiful blue eyes, or when in one of the side chapels he leafed through his little Bible piously with his slim hands. The immediate proximity of a secret, which he could walk around in half a minute, but which at the same time was as inaccessible as his dream of the Citadel during the day, shut him off completely from what was happening around him. It was difficult to assess from a distance, but it seemed to him that the space under the top of the altar was large enough to contain the ark.

  He realized that it was difficult to look properly at something like this. But meanwhile he had seen that behind the bars was a bronze door, again closed with a large padlock. He had never been as certain of anything else as now: something extraordinary was kept inside—he felt it with his whole being, like a compass needle feels the pull. After the priests had motioned visitors to leave with solemn gestures, he walked around the complex a few times on the piazza and looked at the square outer walls of the chapel, framed by Fontana's slightly lower new building. On the small lawn at the side some Tamils were stoking a fire; a half-dressed man with one arm stood washing himself, while someone in a parked car took a photo of him with a telescopic lens.

  On his way home Quinten went back to the triumphal arch of Titus on the Forum Romanum. With his eyes screwed up, he tried to make out whether the ark had perhaps been on the relief and deliberately removed by a pope. The sharp shadows now cast by the sun made the depiction even more lively and inspired than when he had first seen it. Close by was the roaring of cars and buses—but the excitement and the noise of the triumphal entry, almost twenty centuries before, here on this spot, now resounded through it like a real storm in a theater where a pastoral scene was being played. The grim faces of the soldiers, each with a laurel wreath; above them, agitated movement of regimental standards, the captured candelabra on their shoulders, the silver trumpets, the table with the shewbread. Everyone was doing something, carrying something. Only the last figure looked a little lost; he was the only one whose head had virtually completely disappeared. The relief was weathered. There were details missing, and the exhaust gas would obviously demolish much more, but there was no sign of an ark that had been spirited away.

  When he got home, Onno was lying on his mattress reading the International Herald Tribune.

  With his hand on the door handle Quinten stopped. "Since when have you read the newspapers?"

  Onno dropped the paper, looked at him over his reading glasses, and said: "I've come down to earth, Quinten."

  He told him what had happened to him in the institute and that it would now soon be the end of his anonymous existence, but that in exchange he had
rediscovered the world.

  "I would never have thought that it would happen again. I thought I would be in mourning till I died, and without your arrival in Rome that would have happened, but obviously this was meant to be."

  "At least that's how it is," said Quinten, who had sat down on the chair at Onno's desk.

  Onno folded his hands on the newspaper and looked for a while at a large black feather from Edgar's wing, which was in an empty inkwell on the windowsill.

  "Do you know what may be the most terrible of all sayings? 'Time heals all wounds.' But it's true. There's always a scar that may hurt when the weather changes; but one day the wound heals. As a boy of eight I once stumbled with one of those curved pointed nail clippers in my hands. It went deep into my knee, and I can still remember exactly how I screamed with pain. So like everyone else I got a scar on my knee, but I couldn't tell you which one anymore. You must have scars, too, that you can't remember how you got. There's something dreadful about that. Because it means that looking back on it, those wounds might just as well have never existed. What happened to me is a trifle compared with what has happened to other people—in the war, for example, and that wound has obviously healed—but your mother's still in a coma and Auntie Helga is still dead. There's something wrong about that."

  Quinten became confused by those words, and when Onno saw that he sat up a bit and laughed.

  "Don't you listen to your old father. Humanity could not exist at all if it were any different, and for animals it's no problem at all. Very soon, when we've solved all mysteries, we'll still be left with the mystery of time. Because that's what we are ourselves. That's why I'm reading this newspaper here. I don't have the feeling that you're interested in world politics, but shall I tell you what I've discovered?"

  "Yes," said Quinten. "But not what you've discovered in world politics."